


In An Unguarded Moment

by Costello_Music



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hiatus prompts, Possibly Unrequited Love, Pre-Relationship, The Nein finally get to chill, happy fun boat times, week 2: books
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:33:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23410240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Costello_Music/pseuds/Costello_Music
Summary: The best part of being on a ship in the middle of the ocean was that they had nothing to do and nowhere to immediately be. It gave him time to sit and relax and maybe fix some of his older spells. It is calm, beautiful, and peaceful on the ocean.Until Jester comes to see what he's doing. Not that he minds of course.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 12
Kudos: 77





	In An Unguarded Moment

**Author's Note:**

> My offering for the Hiatus prompts by FunnyGirlThatBelle on tumblr. For week 2: books/library. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy it. ^_^

It was nice to be on the sea again.

The sun was warm and inviting. The breeze was cool and had a pleasant briny smell. The sound of the ocean gently brushing against the ship was relaxing. And most of all it was nice to take a moment to breath. To stop. To relax.

It had been a long couple of months. Caleb felt like they hadn’t had a break since freeing Yeza from the Rosohna dungeons months ago. That they had been rushing from one emergency to the other since they had lost Yasha. The first few days that passed on the ship had felt strange. He almost hadn’t known what to do with himself without the constant threat of doom hanging over them. Being on the sea was so different to what had had known for most of his life. Even before the Nein, even before he broke, not since he had been a small boy in Blumenthal had his life been this quite and content. The weather too was the opposite of dreary cold he’d grown up with.

The tension from the possible ways the Peace talks could have gone wrong was now gone. It defied his wildest dreams and expectations that it had apparently had gone off without a hitch. With the Assembly involved that was more then he could have possibly hoped for. It was still to be determined if it would last, but for now he felt that they could enjoy the enforced serenity and calm that travelling on the sea inherently bought. If anything were to go awry between the Empire and the Dynasty there was nothing they could do from the middle of the ocean and that was comforting in its own right. It was out of their hands now and all they had to worry about was the anarchy Travellercon was bound to bring. 

They were not far from Rumblecusp now. It was nothing short of a miracle that they would be arriving not only on time, but early like Jester had so dearly hoped. Caleb wasn’t sure if there was actual divine intervention in that or just luck, but that was a question best left to the more devout of the Nein. 

For the most part the Nein had gone off to their assigned ship duties and had left him to his own devices for the better part of the morning. As far as he knew Caduceus had settled back in the crow’s nest between preparing meals, and Veth was below deck tinkering with her chemicals and the gun powder. Fjord and Beau were running the ship and he assumed Yasha and Jester were doing more preparations for Travellercon, somewhere.

“Caaayyyyllleeb!”

It was peaceful, and calm. For the most part. It was a beautiful day above deck, and a recently changed Frumpkin was curled up next to him in his Bengal form. They were close to their destination but not close enough to need a navigator so Caleb had found a comfortable spot above deck at the bow where he could watch the ship cut through the water, out of the way of Fjord and Orly steering and directing the crew. He had his spell book in front of him and was touching up some of his older spells with better ink where time and a hard life (for a book) had left the words and symbols a bit faded. The morning had been uneventful so far. But that peace was now being shattered with the unceremonious arrival of Jester Lavorre.

“Caaayylleeb,” Jester called again as she climbed the stairs to reach the nook he’d claimed for himself. Once she reached the top of the stairs she added, “Whatcha doing?”

“Hello Jester,” he replied, glancing up from his spell book with a badly suppressed smile. Beside him Frumpkin glanced up but curled back up to sleep again after a quick assessment of the situation. He’d been around the Nein too long for loud noises to bother him. And Caleb could only imagine what went on in the Feywild.

“Oooh, Frumpkin’s a cat again! How nice!” Jester exclaimed and bent down to pat the cat.

Caleb didn’t need to tell Frumpkin to take the enthusiastic petting without complaint, but he did anyway. Frumpkin deserved it, and anything that made Jester happy was worth it. The look Frumpkin shot him implied that this was beneath his dignity, but that disappeared when Jester found the spot under his ears that he liked and he began to purr. 

“Ja. I changed him back last night. He likes to be a cat, and he is a good cat” Caleb replied, with a mental nudge to his Familiar. Caleb frowned a little and added, “I hope you didn’t have plans for his monkey form for Travellercon? I can change him back if you want”

Jester looked at him, her hands still cupping Frumpkin’s face.

“Oh no! Cat-Frumpkin will be fine! I mean if you wanted him to be a monkey that could be pretty funny but it’s ok he doesn’t have to be!” she hastily replied. Caleb smiled at her.

“Ah. Gut,” he replied.

“If Frumpkin wants to be involved you could do the dancing cat thing again. You know, like you did in the caves while we were traveling to Xhorhas. That looked pretty cool,” she suggested, turning her full attention to Frumpkin once again for one final scritch.

“It’s your show, whatever you need let us know,” Caleb replied. Jester nodded as she stood up again, leaving Frumpkin alone.

“Yeah yeah yeah. This is going to be, so good,” Jester said, beaming.

She looked around the deck, the sun was high in the sky by now and the water beneath them was a crystal clear blue-green. Caleb had his back to the railing and his books around him. A small clay figure of the Traveller was to the left of them from when she and Beau had been decorating them with the left over gem dust. To her amusement a few small specks of the gem dust was on Caleb’s spell book and shirt. She went over to adjust the small figure of the Traveller and muttered, “Huh, I thought I had grabbed them all.”

Caleb was watching as she wondered back over to him and she added in a louder voice in an abrupt change of track, “ So what are you doing Cayleb? I haven’t seen you _all_ morning!”

He blinked at her, his hand absentmindedly reaching to pat Frumpkin who had curled back up to sleep.

“Just going through my spells. Making sure the ink hasn’t faded or anything. You know, general upkeep,” Caleb replied, gesturing to the book open in front of him.

Jester turned and sat down heavily next to him, leaning over the spell book.

“Ah. I see. Your spells are _so_ different to mine. I just ask the Traveller for what I want to do for the day and he gives it to me. Sometimes he even teaches me something new which is always _so_ exciting. But he hasn’t done that in a while.” Jester rambled in a rush as she inspected the page in front of her. 

“What’s that symbol for?” she added, pointing to a random symbol on the page.

Caleb blinked again, but was long use to Jester’s unique speech pattern to follow without much trouble.

“Ah, that one is for the School of Evocation. It’s for my fire spells. I’ve told you about the schools of magic before, ja?” Caleb replied, clicking his fingers together to form a brief spark for emphasis. 

“Oooh. It sounds familiar,” Jester replied. Her face was screwed up in concentration as her eyes roamed aimlessly over the page. “Maybe.”

Caleb smiled at her, and pointed to the first line of his Fireball spell.

“Well that’s what that symbol is for. I could show you what these symbols mean and what school of magic they belong to if you would like,” Caleb said as he flicked through the first few spells in his book. He looked at her and sheepishly added, “If you have nothing better to do of course.”

“Sure Cayleb,” Jester beamed and shifted closer to him with barely a second of thought.

With a faint blush dusting his cheeks Caleb pulled a blank piece of paper from his bag with a vial of normal ink and set it next to his spell book.

“Ok, to start there are eight main schools of magic,” Caleb paused and drew two symbols. The first was the eye like symbol of Evocation that had previously been pointed out, the second was of two vertical lines with a wavy horizontal one on top. “These two represent Evocation and Transmutation. My two preferred schools…”

Being on a ship was nice, but even with almost literally nothing else to do Caleb was well aware how dry magical theory could be, even to a young mage for whom it was incredibly relevant. Let alone an easily distractible cleric who had no real stake in the game. To Jester’s credit she seemed interested in what he was saying, adding her own artistic (and in most cases dirty) touches to the symbols he was showing her.

“Cayleb that one is totally a dick, if you add a line here and shifted it this way.”

“You, you are not wrong there Blueberry. But if you like that symbol, check out this one.”

Even if she didn’t seem to be bored by what he was showing her, he was mindful that it would be very easy to drift into that territory. Setting himself twenty minutes maximum he kept his explanation succinct and hopefully interesting. At his self-imposed limit he sat back a little away from the sheet and turned to face Jester fully.

“That’s the basics of spell transcription. Not too boring for you I hope,” he said, trailing off awkwardly keeping his eyes on the page of notes in front of them. Jester beamed at him again.

“No no Cayleb. That was pretty cool. I mean I’m glad the Traveller doesn’t want me to do that but it is cool that you remember all that. You make a good teacher Cayleb!” she said, taking one of his hands in her own in earnestness.

Caleb blushed and looked up at her. “I’m glad you think so Blueberry. If you want me to teach you anything else I’d be happy too.”

Jester dropped his hand and gave a loud gasp.

“Oh! I just had a brilliant idea! You book is pretty cool, but also a bit boring. If you like I can add some of these improved symbols to your book. Or you know, on the pages without spells on them,” she said, taking his hand again with an enthusiastic but gentle shake. “Oh, oh! I can make some pages for you to put between your spells with some cool drawings and annotations!”

Caleb paused, a little overwhelmed by Jester’s enthusiasm. She was beaming at him again, excited by her own idea. It was a look he’d do anything in his power to make sure nothing stole it from her. There was not much he wouldn’t do to make her happy. Even if he himself would never truly be the source of her happiness, any little bit he could add was worth it.

“I would love that. In between my actual spells of course,” he gestured down to the spell currently opened in front of him. “I greatly enjoy your artwork, but I also would like my spells to be functional.” 

“Ok, ok. I’ll start working on right away,” she replied, making no move to get up. She leaned closer and whispered conspiratorially. “I’m going to add so many hidden dicks too just you wait.”

Caleb chuckled, and started to put away the extra ink and pages they’d been using back into his bag. 

“I expect nothing less,” he said, and offered the page they’d been working on to her for reference, which Jester put in her pocket with a smile.

They sat in comfortable silence for a moment, watching out to the horizon as the ship cut through the water. The sounds of the crew behind them was a soft background noise mixed with the wind whipping past and the water below. Jester leaned against him, and Caleb stiffened in shock before relaxing and keeping still as to not disturb her.

The clock in the back of his mind told him that they sat like that for only a minute and a half (which felt much longer to Caleb despite knowing better), before Jester sat up with another excited gasp and turned to shake his shoulder. 

“Oh oh and Caleb!” she said, continuing an unspoken train of thought.

“Yes Blueberry,” Caleb mildly replied as Jester took a breath.

“You remember that spell Essek taught you. The one with that made the chair hang in the air. I might want you to use the special prank gold I gave you so you can cast that at Travellercon. I’ll have to see what’s around the island and what the Traveller thinks but I think that could look super cool. Or be a super funny prank,” she said in a rush, her eyes bright with mischief. 

This statement did take Caleb a moment to decipher, but he smiled at her once he did.

“Of course. All of my spells are at your disposal,” he replied. “Just let me know what you want.”

“Awesome! Thank-you Cayleb!” she replied with a bright smile. She leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on his cheek with a giggle. “You’re the best!”

Caleb felt frozen in place as the moments passing felt like a lifetime. A jolt went through his whole body and his eyes widened. The faint blush that more often than not accompanied his cheeks whenever Jester was around deepened significantly and traitorously. Jester giggled again at his short circuiting and got up, brushing odd dust and salt off her dress as she did so.

“I’ll see you later then Cayleb. I’m going to start the super cool pages for your spell book,” she said and disappeared with a skip down the stairs and was heading below deck before Caleb could piece together what just happened and think of a response. Beside him Frumpkin sat up and brushed his head against his Master’s knee, bringing him back to reality.

“She’s certainly something, isn’t she buddy,” he said, patting Frumpkin’s head in response.

Frumpkin meowed in agreement.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm always open to any prompts anyone wants to send my way.


End file.
